Dampmartin leaves his wine; goes out with a friend or two, to
see the fighting. Unwashed men growl on him, with murmurs of "A bas les
Aristocrates (Down with the Aristocrats);" and insult the cross of St.
Louis? They elbow him, and hustle him; but do not pick his pocket;--as
indeed at Reveillon's too there was not the slightest stealing.
(Evenemens qui se sont passes sous mes yeux pendant la Revolution
Francaise, par A. H. Dampmartin (Berlin, 1799), i. 25-27.)

At fall of night, as the thing will not end, Besenval takes his
resolution: orders out the Gardes Suisses with two pieces of artillery.
The Swiss Guards shall proceed thither; summon that rabble to depart,
in the King's name. If disobeyed, they shall load their artillery with
grape-shot, visibly to the general eye; shall again summon; if again
disobeyed, fire,--and keep firing 'till the last man' be in this manner
blasted off, and the street clear. With which spirited resolution, as
might have been hoped, the business is got ended. At sight of the lit
matches, of the foreign red-coated Switzers, Saint-Antoine dissipates;
hastily, in the shades of dusk. There is an encumbered street; there are
'from four to five hundred' dead men. Unfortunate Reveillon has found
shelter in the Bastille; does therefrom, safe behind stone bulwarks,
issue, plaint, protestation, explanation, for the next month. Bold
Besenval has thanks from all the respectable Parisian classes; but finds
no special notice taken of him at Versailles,--a thing the man of true
worth is used to. (Besenval, iii. 389.)

But how it originated, this fierce electric sputter and explosion? From
D'Orleans! cries the Court-party: he, with his gold, enlisted these
Brigands,--surely in some surprising manner, without sound of drum: he
raked them in hither, from all corners; to ferment and take fire; evil
is his good. From the Court! cries enlightened Patriotism: it is the
cursed gold and wiles of Aristocrats that enlisted them; set them upon
ruining an innocent Sieur Reveillon; to frighten the faint, and disgust
men with the career of Freedom.

Besenval, with reluctance, concludes that it came from 'the English, our
natural enemies.' Or, alas, might not one rather attribute it to Diana
in the shape of Hunger? To some twin Dioscuri, OPPRESSION and REVENGE;
so often seen in the battles of men? Poor Lackalls, all betoiled,
besoiled, encrusted into dim defacement; into whom nevertheless the
breath of the Almighty has